The Holy Sacrifice of Mass

By Cheryl Dickow
Catholic Online

As Catholics, each and every one of us has participated in masses that have been offered up for deceased members of our church community. We listen to the names of these brothers and sisters in Christ and, in a very personal way, share in the intentions of a family that we may or may not know. In that brief moment, as the priest is acting in persona Christi, or as a mediator between God and man, time and space does not exist. When we look upon the consecrated Host we are looking upon our Lord and Savior.

It is the first Good Friday and we are with Him at Calvery. As we read in Romans 10:14, For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. We are in our Lord's presence. In His presence, we have a sacred obligation to ask for His most blessed intercession for those we have loved and who are now awaiting His final judgment. As Catholic Christians we are participating in a grace given to us by the Father, hence our sacred obligation. It is a grace we may freely choose to accept or decline.

But how many of us are accepting this grace? Have we shied away from this opportunity because of the secular clouds under which it has been cast? Have we mistakenly bought into the secular messages that by paying a stipend for this event we are buying our way, or a loved one's ticket, into heaven? Or are we simply unaware of the beauty and significance of such a divinely offered grace? Let's look at these misnomers and clear the way for our freely embracing God's gift of the Holy Sacrifice of Mass.

In a world alive with Harry Potter and tales of magic, sorcery, and a divine union between Christ and Mary Magdalene, we have allowed our faith, and its rich history, to be caught up in the winds of secularism. Not steeped in the teachings and dogma of our faith, the lines between the fiction of DaVinci Code and the non-fiction of the Catechism have disappeared; they have become one in the same. We find ourselves in conversations with our Catholic brethren questioning the validity of what we do and how we practice our faith. Or worse yet, our conversations are internal and our theological compass is without "north." The graces given to us through our sacraments seem no more or less real than the tales we are told in popular literary works. Hence, the "slippery slope" so often referred to, is underfoot.

Adding to the magnitude of the blurred, or vanishing, distinctions between the Truth of our faith, with a capital "T," and the secularized truth, with a lower case 't,' is the notion that stipends are our attempts to "buy" a place in heaven. However, when we understand that stipends are used for the care of the flock, for the spreading of the Good News, and for the needs of the many, our ability to return to this grace should be hastened. Careful research of mass intentions and the accompanying stipends procures such knowledge that, first and foremost, salvation cannot be purchased through our meager contributions nor through any works that we are able to accomplish in our lifetime. It is a gift freely given and ours to freely accept. We are never "worthy" of it but instead are able to embrace it, and be nourished by it, as we continue our earthly journey living according to God's edicts. Catholics have never believed that they could purchase salvation. They have, however, understood their call to live in accordance with the reality of Romans 14:12 that says, So then each of us shall give an account of himself to God.

If salvation is not something we can earn, then why do we offer masses up for our loved ones and pay stipends? We do this with the belief that Christ is our ultimate intercessor and when we join Him at the altar, we are placing our requests at His feet so that He may take them to the Father. Stipends are simply those earthly edicts that call us to care for one another, feed one another, and do the work of His church. In fact, stipends received that exceed one per mass are given to the Holy See or in some way are made available to other institutions for His work. They are not, nor have they ever been, a fast track to eternal life in heaven. Christ is the only way to the Father and in using the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we are witnessing our complete understanding of that fact.

The beauty and significance of the words of St. Paul in the second letter to the Corinthians 4:16-18 ring true for us as we all say in our hearts, Therefore, we are not discouraged, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen in eternal. We fully believe and have faith that these words only have Truth in Christ. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we are participating in the eternal, albeit unseen, Good Friday that Christ offered Himself as the one bloody sacrifice. It is a grace given by God that we do well in understanding and freely accepting.

October 13th was the tenth anniversary of the passing of my grandmother. More than a dozen of the seventy-five members of our family attended a mass offered for her, our beloved matriarch. At mass, we surrounded my ninety-year-old grandfather and found the true gift of Christ's peace as we heard the mention of my grandmother's name. We were overcome with joy and gratitude as we participated in this God-given grace. Our prayers for my grandmother's eternal rest were joined with the one, true sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In a moment that truly transcended time and space, we joined the choirs of angels and saints in the worship of our Creator, the Creator of all this was, is, and ever shall be.

May we all, as Catholics, recognize with clarity, and accept with gratitude, the graces that our heavenly Father has bestowed upon us, allowing us to raise our intentions to Him, through our Savior, Jesus Christ at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

_________________

Cheryl Dickow is webmaster for www.AskKnockSeek.com. She is an author and speaker. She is also the editor of Bezalel Books, a Catholic Publishing Company offering services to Catholic authors seeking an opportunity to publish their works that glorify the kingdom of God and witness to the Truth as found in Scripture. Information about Bezalel is found on Cheryl's website.

Contact

Ask, Knock, and Seek
http://www.AskKnockSeek.com , US
Cheryl Dickow - Editor, Author, and Speaker, 248 917.3865

Email

Cheryl@AskKnockSeek.com

Keywords

Mass Intentions

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